


Talk on the Street

by Emi_theSassiestSousa



Series: A Change is Gonna Come [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Cas, Angst, Castiel's POV, Developing Relationship, Irony, M/M, Possible Drowning Triggers, the 'i love you all' scene is way more tragic than you thought, the psyche of angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 19:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14243796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emi_theSassiestSousa/pseuds/Emi_theSassiestSousa
Summary: Cas leaves in the night to replace a shirt damaged during a fight with Dean. While out tracking down the replacement, he also searches for the reason Dean is so... so...





	Talk on the Street

**Author's Note:**

> This is a timestamp for Chapter Four of Part One - Highway Tune, but is also a stand-alone piece.  
>  
> 
> {Talk on the Street - Lyrics Excerpt}  
>  _Everyone knows,_  
>  _That's there's talking on the streets,_  
>  _Remember the days,_  
>  _When there's no one to defeat,_  
>  _Follow me down,_  
>  _To the mountain of the sun,_  
>  _Forgetting the end,_  
>  _As your new life has begun,_  
>  _..._  
>  _And everybody's talkin',_  
>  _But you never let them know,_  
>  _Yes I can hear them talkin',_

After Sam entered the motel room, Cas pushed himself off the Impala and crossed the parking lot to the road, heading back for the large store they had passed on the way into town.

_Dean shoved him, and in his frustration Cas held on too tightly._

_He opened his fists, and found the scraps of Dean's shirt still held in his palms._

Cas had ripped Dean's shirt. Even if Dean had acted... well whatever Dean had been thinking, Cas was responsible for the damage. It was only right that he replace it.

He walked along the highway, away from the setting sun, proceeding at a pace he had almost gotten used to since the Fall. Almost. His wings had improved since, but it would still be a long time before he could even consider flying again. But then, what was a few years to an angel?

 _Sometimes it feels like eternity,_ Cas thought, his ire focused on one human in particular.

He had told Dean. But Dean didn't listen.

Dean never listened. Cas had told him all sorts of things, not just this, but Dean never listened. Or did he ignore? Did he ignore what he didn't want to hear?

Did they all ignore what they didn't want to hear from him? Cas had told them... told them all in that barn… But they never... Not one of them had said back...

Damn it.

The bite of his rancor was overpowering.

His feet methodically carried him down the road. One foot after the other. He meditated on the rhythm, on the sound of worn shoes on pavement. On gravel. On pavement again. A car passed him occasionally, but not often. Birds chased each other across the road. Wind hissed through the bare branches of the trees. Cas walked and he walked and he took in the ambient noise of this town on the edge of the bubble of metropolis— not quite suburb, not quite rural.

With each step, his resentment slowly softened into frustration. He had told Dean. He had said clearly that the monsters wouldn't kill him. But Dean had leapt in only a moment after the grindylows had engaged him. Now, yes, he had frozen initially. Had found himself unable to react as the water closed over his head, as the sunlight faded, as he was dragged down, down… But the river was murky, Dean couldn't have seen his lapse. Dean didn't have the senses Cas did.

The store slowly came into view. Cas crossed the vast parking lot in a place between frustration, anger, and melancholy.

He passed through the sliding doors into the foyer. Why did Dean do this? Why did he insist on protecting Cas when it wasn't necessary? 

He passed into the vast retail space. The store wasn't as bright as he expected.

Cas scanned the signs above him for what he wanted. There. _Menswear._

Underneath the sign, he found a rack full of plaid. He carefully pulled the folded scraps of fabric from his pocket, and set to work.

Dean couldn't have known. He didn't have the senses Cas did. Which was exactly why he shouldn't have been anywhere near that fight. Dean couldn't see as well as he could, couldn't hear as well as he could, he needed to breathe—

_That doesn't matter!_

A hanger slipped from his grip and clattered on the floor.

Cas stooped to pick it up. Of course it matters, Dean.

_It doesn't matter that you're a goddamned angel!_

Cas sighed. Of course that matters, Dean.

The right pattern wasn't here. He would have to go somewhere else.

He walked. He puzzled. He lamented.

Cas found another store further down the road. Smaller, but they still had clothes for sale.

Dean couldn't have known, but he still jumped in. Why?

Because Dean was irrational.

No, this store didn't have the right shirt either.

Back on the road, his mood shifted again. Less frustrated and more curious. Why? So much about Dean made Castiel wonder why, but this, in particular, was important.

He ended up outside a little thrift store. It was well past dark now and the store was closed. With a touch of his fingers Cas unlocked the door and shut down the burglar alarm. Cas was not a burglar.

This store was harder to search. Things weren't sorted in the same way as the other stores. Cas slowly made his way around the racks, thoroughly checking each one.

Dean was irrational. He jumped into that water without reason.

This rack had no plaid at all.

No, he had to give Dean more credit than that. Dean was one of the best hunters out there, the other being Sam, of course. No, Dean had a reason. Cas just couldn't see it.

_It doesn't matter that you're a goddamned angel! That has never kept you safe!_

Dean worried about Cas's safety, sure, but at the risk of his own life?

Cas huffed a dry laugh at his own thought. That was basically Dean’s _modus operandi._

He saw plaid on the next rack.

_Not when it fucking mattered!_

When had it mattered, Dean? When had being an angel not protected him from the danger they faced hunting?

 _Perhaps all the times I've died now,_ Cas supposed.

When Sam had suggested Cas be the one to draw the monsters out, Cas’s mind had leapt back in time, back to that day he had finally come to Dean for help, when he had tried to set things right, but they had instead gone so horribly wrong. The Leviathan had crushed him in his own vessel. Had forced him into the water. Had torn him to nothing and left him for dead.

And when he had looked back at Dean he knew he was thinking of the same day. No doubt Dean had still been thinking of it when Cas had been pulled under.

Dean had been worried. Scared. Irrational and yet completely rational.

Dean had let his emotions guide him when he should just—

Oh. Of course.

There. A pattern jumped out at him. He compared it to his swatches. It wasn't perfect but it would do for now. Perhaps he would find the perfect one another day. Cas left money on the counter and locked the door behind him.

Dean let his emotions guide him. He was an emotional creature. Not that Cas wasn't, but it was different for angels. Well, different for Cas.

So of course Dean had jumped in after Cas. Because Dean was human.

That rang in Cas’s head as he walked back up the road.

Of course Dean had jumped in. Dean was human. And Cas hadn't taken any precautions to stop him.

Cas needed more than this shirt.

He turned to his right, seeing a little bakery there.

Cas needed pie.

 

~*~*~*~

 

It was past two in the morning when Cas slipped into the motel room. Sam and Dean were fast asleep, their even breathing and slowed heartbeats filling Cas's ears. Walking silently across the hard carpeted floor, he approached Dean's bed, and placed the folded shirt and the slice of pie at the end of the mattress.

He watched Dean's back slowly rise and fall.

He should leave. He didn't know how Dean would take his apology. He didn't know  _if_ Dean would take his apology.

He wanted to stay though. There was an ache in his chest that wanted to wake Dean up. To talk about this. To talk about everything.

But he didn't. He couldn't. That ache in his chest was overpowered by a tightness that screamed at him. A clenching pain that told him Dean wouldn't want that. Whatever that 'everything' was, Dean wouldn't want to talk about it. Wouldn't want to hear it. Might even choose to ignore it because—

Because Dean was human.

Right. Of course.

That.

Always that.

Cas left the motel room to wait out the rest of the night, leaning up against the car.

He left, leaving Dean to his sleep. And he wished.

He wished...

What? What was he wishing for? What would Cas change here?

 

Nothing.

 

 

...Almost nothing.

 

 

Cas looked down at his hands.

  

 

 

...Everything.

**Author's Note:**

> {[Talk on the Street](https://open.spotify.com/track/2H9sGMEd19c2XzUyigadgS) \- Full Lyrics}  
>  _Oh mama you lie in ruin,_  
>  _Can't you see what you've done,_  
>  _Well I've been there before,_  
>  _What's this war that you won?_  
>  _Oh mama you walk this way,_  
>  _And I'm crying inside,_  
>  _Well I've been there before,_  
>  _And you know that it's time,_  
>   
>  _And everybody's talkin',_  
>  _But you never let them know,_  
>  _Yes I can hear them talkin'_  
>   
>  _Everyone knows,_  
>  _That's there's talkin' on the streets,_  
>  _Remember the days,_  
>  _When there's no one to defeat,_  
>  _Follow me down,_  
>  _To the mountain of the sun,_  
>  _Forgetting the end,_  
>  _As your new life has begun,_  
>   
>  _Look mama the light is low,_  
>  _And the darkness near,_  
>  _Yes everyone is looking for me and you,_  
>  _And the night's what you fear,_  
>  _Walk someone they follow us,_  
>  _And you're all undone,_  
>  _Yes everyone is looking for me and you,_  
>  _And the war has begun,_  
>   
>  _And everybody's talkin',_  
>  _But you never let 'em know,_  
>  _Yes I can hear them talkin',_  
>   
>  _Everyone knows,_  
>  _That's there's talkin' on the streets,_  
>  _Remember the days,_  
>  _When there's no one to defeat,_  
>  _Follow me down,_  
>  _To the mountain of the sun,_  
>  _Forgetting the end,_  
>  _As your new life has begun,_  
>   
>  _And everybody's talkin',_  
>  _And you never let them know,_  
>  _Yes I can hear them talkin',_  
>  _And you never let them know_


End file.
